Perhaps the best thing that ever happened to Gennady Golovkin was hiring Abel Sanchez to train him three years ago. Golovkin has said as much.

“Big change for me,” said Golovkin, of Kazakhstan, in his limited English. “It’s different, 100 percent.”

Similarly, the best thing that has happened to Sanchez is hooking up with Golovkin. It’s true, Sanchez has trained many fighters over the years, including former champion Terry Norris. But Golovkin has become popular in the states, thanks to his 88.8 percent knockout ratio and dominating way he dispatches his opponents. Consequently, Sanchez’s star also has risen.

Sanchez, typically not the boastful type, has become that guy when it comes to Golovkin. Recalling an email he sent to this boxing writer about two years ago, Sanchez said he normally doesn’t brag much about his fighters, but he had a middleweight he believed was going to be the next great thing in the sport.

He was right.

Part of the reason it’s happened is because Sanchez told Golovkin early on the way to capture America’s attention is to be a fighter who seeks and destroys. We should all thank him for that.

But all that apparently doesn’t cut any ice with Andre Rozier, trainer for Curtis Stevens. Rozier doesn’t care for Sanchez and the way he goes on about Golovkin (27-0, 24 KOs), who tonight will defend his title against Brooklyn’s Stevens at Madison Square Garden (on HBO).

During a conference call, Rozier was asked what he thinks about Sanchez saying Stevens is not on Golovkin’s level and doesn’t see the fight going past three rounds. Rozier went off.

“Well, as I’ve said before, Abel reminds me of when I was doing community activist work with individuals who had a problem with substance abuse,” Rozier said of Sanchez, who grew up in West Covina and trains fighters out of his sprawling Big Bear camp. “He sometimes talks like he’s on drugs and he just finds a way to go where no one else could go.

“The things he refers to — and quite honestly he might be believing it, which is the worst part of it all — he says things that just don’t make sense at all.”

Then, for some reason, Rozier got into ethnicities.

“I know he’s a Hispanic and Gennady is European,” Rozier said. “I would love to see how they communicate. They must have created a new sign language for them so that they can refer information to each other. I mean, Abel is, I think, one that talks up a situation more so that he can believe that it’ll take place that way and he talks around issues.”

For the record, Sanchez speaks perfect English and Spanish and obviously has gotten under Rozier’s skin. Following the conference call, Sanchez put a call in to yours truly. He had already responded to Rozier on the call, but he wanted to add an extra dagger or two.

“I don’t get upset about what he says because I have to consider the source,” Sanchez said. “It’s coming from somebody that has never done anything at this level, that doesn’t know what this level is all about, so he has no clue what he’s talking about.

“On November second, he’ll find out that this championship level is a whole lot different than the amateurs, whatever he’s done in the past. And I’m talking about Andre, I’m not talking about Curtis. He (Rozier) makes great ring outfits, flamboyant and loud. But he has no clue what it’s all about in the training part of it.”

Rozier is known for designing flashy ring wear for fighters. But it’s going to take more than a colorful robe and pair of trunks for Stevens (25-3, 18 KOs) to beat Golovkin, who has knocked out his past 14 opponents.

One things’s certain, Stevens is confident. The former super middleweight and light heavyweight now is fighting where his team believes he belongs — at middleweight. He, too, packs a punch.

“I’m coming to break him down,” said Stevens, 28, when asked if he might have to box more than usual because of Golovkin’s power. “I’m coming to take it from him, I’m coming to crush him. Right now, in my mind, I’m not thinking about boxing.

“I’m like, you know, I’m coming there to wreck him.”

Golovkin lets this stuff roll right off his shoulder. In one particular roundtable with reporters, he was asked what he thinks about Stevens. He smiled.

“Oh, he is big puncher, yes,” Golovkin said. “But for me, it doesn’t matter if he is big puncher, whether he is tall, short, small.”

And on that aforementioned conference call, Golovkin talked about how much fun all of this is and how easy it is. In his own way, he addressed the rhetoric coming from the Stevens camp.

“Too much talking, but I’m relaxed,” Golovkin said.

An even-tempered beast is the scariest kind.

Rios vows to wear down Pacquiao

Brandon Rios will be in the most important fight of his career in three weeks when he takes on Manny Pacquiao in the welterweight main event in Macao, China (on HBO pay-per-view). Either he’s trying to psych himself up with some big talk, or he really believes that he is going to hand Pacquiao his second consecutive knockout loss on Nov. 23.

“I am going to China to win,” Rios said Friday at the Robert Garcia Boxing Academy in Oxnard. “I am going to wear Pacquiao down like all my opponents. If I get a knockout, good. I am physically strong and I am going to take it to him.”

“Let Freddie Roach know I am a man,” Rios said. “I come for the win, the kill. Tell Freddie that. I want him to know.”

He took a shot at Pacquiao too, and Pacquiao is just the guy who takes this stuff to heart because he is so prideful.

“I am in the prime of my career, not like Pacquiao,” Rios said, giving Roach and Pacquiao some terrific chalkboard material.

Rios is 27. Pacquiao is 34 and coming off a sixth-round knockout loss at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez in December.

Fortunately for Rios, Garcia is his trainer and a good one. It sounds like he is not assuming for a second that Pacquiao is done.

“We are preparing to face the Manny Pacquiao who was so dominant a few years ago,” Garcia said. “We have a game plan to win this fight. Brandon is fully prepared and has the mental toughness to break down and beat Manny.”

Rios is 31-1-1 with 23 knockouts. Pacquiao is 54-5-2 with 38 knockouts.

Also …

HBO will be televising a tripleheader from American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, Texas, next Saturday. Roman “Rocky” Martinez (27-1-2, 16 KOs) of Puerto Rico will defend his super featherweight belt against undefeated Mikey Garcia (32-0, 27 KOs), a former featherweight champ moving up in weight. Nonito Donaire (31-2, 20 KOs) will take on Vic Darchinyan (39-5-1, 28 KOs) in a 10-round featherweight bout in a rematch of their 2007 fight won by Donaire via fifth-round TKO. Vanes Martirosyan (33-0-1, 21 KOs) of Glendale will take on Demetrius Andrade (19-0, 13 KOs) for a vacant junior middleweight title. … The following Saturday, on Nov. 16, super middleweight champion Andre Ward (26-0, 14 KOs) will make his return to the ring when he defends his title against Edwin Rodriguez (24-0, 16 KOs) of the Dominican Republic at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario (on HBO). Ward has not fought in 14 months because of a shoulder injury. … Victor Ortiz was scheduled to return to the ring Dec. 14 on Showtime and face Alfonso Gomez on the undercard of Adrien Broner-Marcos Maidana. But Gomez has pulled out because of an injury, and a new opponent for Ortiz is being sought. Ortiz has not fought since June 2012, when he sustained a badly broken jaw in a ninth-round TKO loss.